Adblock Plus Now Blocks Facebook Read Receipts
Users can now prevent Facebook from telling senders that they saw their messages.
Web page simplifier Adblock Plus is doing self-indulgent Facebook users a favor by offering the chance to hide their response to someone else’s scintillating post.
Depending on whether you use Facebook or not, and that is up to you, this may or may not have made some impression on you.
Non-Facebook people should know that this system applies when someone who is on Facebook declines to read what someone has sent them.
In the past this could have led to a social faux pas, but these days it won’t matter because the sender will not be told about the status of the recipient, or indeed at what time of day they engaged with the message.
Facebook users should know that this means they can relax in the knowledge that, if anyone ever accuses them of missing a costume party, a twerk-off, or a Glee watching party, they can confidently claim to have missed the invitation.
Read receipts can be useful if, say, you are doing something critically important on Facebook, but they could be a bit of a bind, for example, if you are claiming to be in a coma yet still manage to read a critical message from your employer.
Adblock Plus, as opposed to a tweak in Facebook settings, is the reason why we find ourselves considering when or why people might read a Facebook message and whether or not they want anyone else to know about it.
A blog post from the company shares our work-shirking theme and suggests that the feature would come into its own over the weekend.
Facebook offers a simple method for turning off the Read Receipt feature, including a one-click option. We have tried it. It works.
This article was originally published on the Inquirer.
